Method of experimentally identifying the complex mode shape of the self-excited oscillation of a cantilevered pipe conveying fluid

Abstract

The dynamics of a flexible cantilevered pipe conveying fluid have been researched for several decades. It is known that the flexible pipe undergoes self-excited vibration when the flow speed exceeds a critical speed. This instability phenomenon is caused by nonconservative forces. From a mathematical point of view, the system has a characteristic of non-selfadjointness and the linear eigenmodes can be complex and non-orthogonal to each other. As a result, such a mathematical feature of the system is directly related to the instability phenomenon. In this study, we propose a method of experimentally identifying the complex mode from experimentally obtained time histories and decomposing the linear mode into real and imaginary components. In nonlinear analysis, we show that the nonlinear effects of practical systems on the mode in the steady-state self-excited oscillation are small. The real and imaginary components identified using the proposed method for experimental steady-state self-excited oscillations are compared with those obtained in the theoretical analysis, thus validating the proposed identification method.